Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

held up a warning finger. “But don’t leave the restaurant before calling me first. I don’t want you going back to your place alone.”
    Olivia nodded and then glanced over her shoulder at Dixie. “Find Lowell, Sawyer. Find him alive. For her sake.”
    “I’ll try,” he promised and left the diner.
    • • •
    Too restless to go home, Olivia bought an iced coffee from the frozen yogurt shop and then took Haviland to the park. He chased squirrels and other dogs while she sat on a bench and thought back on Violetta’s performance. Using the small notebook she always carried in her purse, she wrote down any phrases she could remember that weren’t from the Jack tales.
    Olivia recorded the part in which Violetta spoke of her father’s warning not to tell a certain story and of how she would soon be turned into a ghost. “She seemed to accept that fate,” Olivia murmured to herself. “To welcome it even. Why?” Fixing her gaze in the middle distance, she was transported into the dark room again. She could hear Violetta’s powerful voice and see the blue light shining on the beautiful woman with the raven hair.
    “The last story had the most clues,” she mused as Haviland barked a hello to a familiar golden retriever. “The one about the man who acted like a bear. The man who hid his treasure in the hollowed-out tree trunk.”
    Suddenly, she froze. “The trunk. What if it’s not a tree at all?” Digging through her purse, she pulled out her cell phone and called Rawlings.
    “I can’t talk right now,” he said without preamble.
    Ignoring him, she demanded, “What’s happened? Is it Lowell?”
    Rawlings didn’t reply, and the white noise coming through the phone indicated that he was moving. “I’m at the hospital again. Mr. Reid was found in the marsh south of the docks. A fisherman saw his body half submerged in a cluster of cattails. Luckily, the man works as a volunteer firefighter and administered CPR. After coughing up a lungful of water, Mr. Reid was able to breathe on his own, but he hasn’t regained consciousness.”
    “Jesus.” Olivia sagged against the bench. “How’s Dixie? Should I come over?”
    “Please don’t,” Rawlings said tersely. “There’s enough confusion as it is, and I need to speak with the Weavers one-on-one.”
    Olivia hated not being able to act. She also hated the image of Dixie pacing the waiting room while a medical team worked on her cousin. Even with Grumpy positioned like a silent sentinel at her side, Dixie would feel scared and alone. “Will Lowell live?”
    “I don’t know. His condition is serious.” There was another rustling through the phone speaker. “I need to go, Olivia.”
    “Wait! I called because I wanted to know if you still have Violetta’s prop trunk at the station.”
    “We do. Why?”
    For a moment, Olivia wondered if her idea was ridiculous but decided there was nothing to lose by voicing it. “What if the hollow where the treasure was hidden wasn’t inside a tree trunk at all? What if the clue refers to Violetta’s wooden trunk? The one holding her props and makeup?”
    Rawlings spoke over a cacophony of sounds including the ringing of phones and a voice crackling through the hospital’s intercom system. “It’s possible. I’ll call and have someone check it out.”
    “Are you going to question Greg Rapson?”
    “I have no cause to bring him in at this time,” Rawlings said. “Unless Mr. Reid wakes up and can talk about what happened or his medical team provides me with tangible evidence that another person was involved in his near drowning, I have to treat this as a case of misadventure. If Mr. Rapson shows up at The Bayside Crab House tonight, perhaps he’ll tell you how he spent his afternoon.”
    The implication was clear. If Rapson had anything to do with Lowell’s so-called accident, then she and Millay would have to find out what he’d done.
    “Call me when you can,” she said. “And tell Dixie—”
    “She’s all right,” he interrupted. “Her kids are here, but I’ll let her know you offered to come.” And with that, he was gone.
    Olivia called for Haviland to heel and then strode to her car with an angry, determined gait. She didn’t like being told what to do, even though she knew Rawlings was right. Her place was at the restaurant and his was at the hospital. They each had their duty to perform if they wanted to catch a killer.
    At home, Olivia took her second shower of the day. She